Jo Ann Brown (12 page)

“Maybe you should.” He kept emotion from his voice. If Herriott thought to wound him with such a statement, Charles would not let him see how deeply it had pierced him. Instantly he regretted the thought. Herriott was a good friend. “If that is what you want. Remember that marriage can be for a lifetime.”

Herriott hung his head in his hands. “I have no idea what I want. It was simple when we were in the army. I wanted to survive another day, another hour, another minute.”

“Then decide what you want to do.”

“I don’t know!” The cry rumbled up from deep within his friend. “I simply don’t know. That is why I came to you. I need your help.”

Charles put his hand on his friend’s shaking shoulder. “I cannot help you with this.”

“Why not?” Herriott looked up at him. “You and Lydia were happy. Don’t you want the same for me?”

He stiffened. He would not wish what he had shared with Lydia on anyone. “I want you to be happy, but you are the only one who knows what makes you happy.”

“I don’t know! That is the problem.”

Squeezing his friend’s shoulder gently, Charles asked, “Have you prayed about this?”

“I have tried.”

“Did you receive any answer?”

“Maybe. I am not sure.” Herriott’s voice grew more miserable with each word. “I believe that the answer is that I must decide for myself.”

At last! Herriott was seeing the truth.

“But what do I decide?” his friend asked.

“What does it matter?” Charles pushed himself to his feet. “Decide
something!
” He stamped across the room. If he did not put some space between him and Herriott, he might take his friend by the lapels and shake him until he unearthed the man his friend once had been.

His sharp tone pricked Herriott’s pride. “It’s not as if I never make a decision.”

“Did you decide what coat to wear tonight?”

Herriott gulped, then shook his head. “My valet selected it.”

“Did you decide which wine to serve with dinner?”

“The butler made those arrangements. He knows the cellar here far better than I do.”

Forcing himself to be calm, because his friend truly needed him, Charles said, “You must start making decisions. You must take over as lord of the manor.”

“I want to.”

“But...?”

“What if marrying my cousin is the wrong thing?” Herriott stood and walked to the window that offered a view of the sea and the village. He leaned his elbow on its edge. “Sophia is not what I envisioned as my wife.”

“Why? She is a lovely woman.”

“True, but she is very—”

“Tall?” He snarled out the word. “I thought better of you. Why are you acting like that fool who stopped calling on her in London because he was too witless to look beyond her height to see the woman she is?”

“Do you mean Lord Owensly?”

Charles almost choked on his outrage. “Is that who led her on? I know the man. He is a bounder, and she is better off not being involved in any way with him. But how could you speak so of your cousin?”

Resting his forehead on his arm stretched across the windowpane, Herriott sighed. “I mean no insult to Cousin Sophia, but I worry about the scandal attached to her after she fled from London. We know that she did nothing wrong, but we also know that people whisper behind their hands.”

“I cannot say what you know, but I know that listening to rumors is a waste of time.”

“It is simple for you, Northbridge. If you were to marry her, you would know how to handle any hints of past scandal. I am new to the Polite World, and I fear, with such baggage, I will stumble coming out of the gate.”

“That sounds as if you have decided not to marry her.” Charles again had to submerge his pulse of joy that Sophia would not become his friend’s wife.

“Why wouldn’t I want to marry her? She is pretty, and she is smart, and she has a warm heart. I doubt any man could see her and not fall in love with her at first sight. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I do.” He knew too well.

“But I am now Lord Meriweather, and I cannot shirk my obligations simply because the
ton
may snicker.” He pushed away from the window. “I think what I am asking, Northbridge, is for you to help me navigate through the labyrinth ahead of me.”

Charles stared at his friend’s wan face, and he knew that Herriott had selected his words carefully. How many times had Charles incited his men to be prepared for battle with almost the same phrase?
Navigating the labyrinth
of the enemy lines
. It was a warning not to get cut off from the rest of the company as chaos exploded around them.

His throat closed, making it tough to breathe. The horrific sounds of guns firing, cannons spewing destruction and men and horses dying filled his ears. He refused to blink. In that split second when his eyes were closed, images of battle would spew forth, sucking him into that hell.

It is a memory. Just a memory.
He kept telling himself that as he struggled to force it into the hidden recesses of his mind.

“Will you?” Herriott asked, his voice the lifeline Charles used to crawl out of that appalling morass.

There was only one answer Charles could give to his friend’s question. No matter how much Charles craved the chance to hold Sophia, Herriott felt himself honor-bound to wed her. The memories brought forth a truth he could not forget. Charles owed Herriott more than he could repay in a single lifetime. If his friend wanted his assistance, Charles had the duty of helping him.

“Yes.”

Chapter Eleven

C
harles woke from a dream that vanished as soon as he opened his eyes. He did not remember the details, only that it had been filled with the horrors he had witnessed during battle. He had thought he had put those terrible nightmares behind him. He had not had one since his arrival at Meriweather Hall.

Now one had stalked him through his sleep, leaving him drenched with sweat.

He tried to relax. What had brought it on? His conversation with Herriott? That must have triggered the dream.

But he had escaped it. All he needed to do was roll over and go to sleep.

He tried to turn over. He could not move. Not to the left. Not to the right. He was pinned down.

By what?

Shifting his arms or legs even an inch was impossible. He was restrained from neck to his toes. Panic crept out of the darkest recesses of his soul.

Where was he?

In France? Maybe the war was still setting the Continent aflame.

Had the French captured him?

His men! Where were they? Had they escaped, or were they prisoners, too?

Sickness boiled up from his gut. Maybe he was not a captive. Maybe he had been shot and was paralyzed. He gagged, struggling not to vomit up his own fear as he thought of Jones. The man, who had served as one of his sergeants, had been shot in the back and afterward could not move anything below his chin.

Charles swallowed hard, fighting the sour taste of bile. He had seen Jones only once after he had been taken from the field on a bloodstained litter. After the battle—Charles could not remember which one—he had found the hospital tent where Jones had been taken.

When he entered the filthy tent, the sharp smell of alcohol and blood burned his nose. The screams of the injured rang in his ears. Medics shouted to each other as they held down a thrashing man and sawed off his arm in an effort to save the soldier’s life. Most of those efforts were futile. The men died in agony from blood loss or infection anyhow.

Under his boots, the mud was mixed with blood and gore. Charles paid it no attention. He could not remember the last time his boots had been shined. The leather was creased from hours of holding a position while he fought the enemy.

A hand reached out and grasped his coat. He looked down at a man whose eyes were hidden beneath a cloth tied around his head. His face was half gone, and Charles had to look away. The man tried to talk to him, but no human sounds came out. With a cry of his own, Charles pulled away from the wounded man.

His throat tightened. He could not breathe. He wanted to escape from these nightmare creatures who once had been healthy soldiers, eager to serve their king and keep their country safe from the Corsican monster who ruled France. But he had come to comfort Jones.

Where was he?

He heard his name called.

He turned toward the low cot where Jones lay as still as stone. Only his eyes moved, dull as death. Where was Jones’s bluster and his courage that had inspired them?

Charles needed to say something now to inspire his wounded man, but words failed him.

“Sir?” Jones’s pain laced through his voice.

“Jones...”
Dear Lord, help me find something to say to ease his pain. Help me help him understand that You are here beside him.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Certainly.” In the wake of each battle, he had many tasks, but they could wait while he helped his sergeant. What could Jones need him to do? A note written home to his family? Someone to sit beside him and brush the flies away from his face? Someone to listen while he talked?

“Kill me.”

Again he had no words.

Jones tried to raise his head, but could not. His eyes came alive with an intensity that nearly knocked Charles off his feet.

“Sir,” his sergeant said, “kill me. I beg you.”

“If there is any hope—”

“There is none.” He gasped for breath between each word. “I heard them say that. I will never again be a husband to my wife. I will never be able to hold my children. You understand, don’t you?”

Charles nodded. He would never hold his wife again either. Even though she had betrayed him, grief remained in his heart. Grief as he mourned for the life they could have had if she had loved him as he loved her. And his children? To them, he was a stranger. He never had seen his son, and he wondered if his daughter would recognize him. Would his children mourn if he died so far from home?

“I don’t want them to see me like this,” Jones went on. “Let them remember me as a hero who defended England. Kill me, sir. I beg you.”

Steel rasped as Charles had drawn his sword. He raised it. Acceptance and gratitude had bloomed in Jones’s eyes. Sweat had poured down into Charles’s, and he had closed them while he uttered a prayer of forgiveness to God and to Jones’s wife and children.

Voices swarmed around him. Some shouting for him to stop, but he was drowning in Jones’s pain and his own. He tried to swing the sword down. He could not. His arms refused to move. What was wrong?

He opened his eyes. He was looking up at Herriott and Bradby who stood over him.
He
was the paralyzed man, and they stood ready to wield their swords. He was begging them to kill him, so he could die as a hero instead of becoming a burden for his children, his children who did not know him. Would anyone love them as they should be loved?

As if in answer to his unspoken question, a cool, soft hand settled on his fevered forehead. Sophia’s hand! What was she doing here?

“Help him!” she ordered, looking across him to his friends.

No! He was not ready to die. Not when he needed to see his children...

Confusion halted him. Where was he? Suddenly he could move his arms and legs. He did, fighting wildly to escape the last of his bonds.

“Whoa!” called Herriott. “Stay still! You are going to knock my head off! That thrashing is what got you entangled in the bedclothes to begin with. Relax, man!”

He obeyed, sinking into his sweaty pillow. He turned his head toward Sophia.

She was not there.

Had she ever been?

He was no longer sure what was real and what was part of the nightmare he had brought home with him from France.

* * *

Sophia was ready to give up on the tour she had arranged for Cousin Edmund. His thoughts were obviously elsewhere. She wondered what had happened and if his distraction had anything do with why neither Charles nor Mr. Bradby had appeared at breakfast. Both men had sent a terse message that they would not be joining the tour of the estate.

With his mind otherwise occupied, the ride on the unseasonably hot afternoon was proving to be a waste of time. She had given her cousin a list of notes she had written last evening after dinner, but she quickly realized when they made their first stop at the gamekeeper’s cottage, that Cousin Edmund had not even glanced at them.

“Mrs. Demaine’s husband’s family has a tradition of serving as gamekeeper on the estate,” Sophia explained as she had in the notes. She smiled at the gawky young man by Mrs. Demaine’s side. “This is Alfred. He has provided great service to both his late father and the estate.”

The young man put his fingers to forelock as Cousin Edmund nodded in his direction. The conversation petered out from there, and Sophia quickly steered her cousin away from the cottage. The Demaines looked anxious that the new Lord Meriweather had not said a single word to them.

Sophia muffled her annoyance. As the baron, her cousin needed to keep up spirits on the estate and to recognize that each member of the staff played a valuable role.

“Edmund, if you will look at the notes I gave you,” she said, glancing back at the thatched cottage, “you will see that my father intended to name Alfred to his late father’s post of gamekeeper. However, I did not want to usurp your authority.”

He startled her by speaking in a calm voice that did not match the tension across his shoulders. “You brought me out here to meet the lad in hopes that I would give him the position.”

“Yes. Please do not think I am trying to manipulate you,” she hurried to add. “The Demaines have been on edge awaiting the decision that Alfred would follow in his father’s footsteps. You, of course, can select whomever you wish to be your gamekeeper, but I wanted you to see how important it is to this family to have the line be unbroken.”

“As it is for the estate’s title.”

She nodded, even though she wished the conversation had not taken such a turn toward the inevitable match she was expected to make with her cousin.

“Do
you
think the lad worthy of the position?” her cousin asked.

Sophia struggled not to breathe out a huge sigh of relief that Edmund’s mind remained on the Demaines and not on an offer of marriage. “I would not have broached the subject of appointing Alfred as the new gamekeeper if I did not think he would be a worthy successor to his father.”

“I should have realized that.” Edmund released a sigh as big as the one inside her. “May we continue this another day? I owe you an apology for coming to this tour unprepared. Allow me a day or two to read the information you graciously have prepared, and then we will continue.”

“As you wish.”

He did not answer as he scurried away as if a wolf nipped at his heels.

Sophia walked toward the house more slowly. Her cousin could not make it clearer that he had no interest in her company.

* * *

Charles paused as he reached for the pitcher of lemonade to refill his glass. Sophia and her sister came out on the terrace that offered a lovely view of the water garden with its fountains and bushes that were donning their autumnal colors. He could not doubt Sophia really stood there, because his heart beat more rapidly at the sight of her. Dressed in a simple green gown that accented her beauty, she had her amazing hair hidden beneath a straw bonnet.

But had she been by his bedside last night when the night horrors visited him again?

When she turned to speak to her cousin, irrational envy swelled through him. He should be glad Herriott was able to manage a few words in her presence. After all, he had promised to help Herriott make the best of the situation.

The best would be for Sophia to be mine.

He ignored that tiny voice in his head and splashed lemonade into his glass. He forced a smile when Michael held a small tin cup. He filled it as his daughter rushed to stand beside Sophia.

Herriott motioned him over to join him and Sophia. A few feet from them, Bradby was talking to Miss Catherine. As usual Miss Catherine was laughing at whatever silly thing he had said. Sophia’s sister had far more patience with Bradby’s unending drollery than Charles did.

“Sir Nigel Tresting is a unique person,” Sophia was saying when Charles came within earshot. “Many days, you can find him out on the moors, painting landscapes filled with sheep. Other days, he is on the strand where he paints views of the sea. Every wall in his house is covered with his work. He holds a ball for the whole parish each year where he can show off his past year’s work before he finds a place to hang it permanently in his house.”

“Can we go?” Gemma faced him. “Please?”

He looked over his daughter’s head to Sophia who regarded the little girl with open affection. Slowly Sophia’s gaze rose toward his, and warmth flowed over him. He kept his own expression from changing, not trusting himself to show any emotion until he discovered if Sophia had truly been by his bed last night and had seen him lost in the weakness that preyed on him, the weakness he hated.

“One must be invited to such an event, Gemma,” Charles said.

That was not the answer his daughter wanted to hear. “Sophia said everyone in the parish was invited.” Gemma whirled away from him. “Tell him, Sophia!”

“Tell him...?” Sophia prompted quietly.

He started to speak, but she put her hand on his arm to halt him.

Had he forgotten how to breathe? The light touch of her fingertips on his sleeve should not have such an intense effect on him, but it did. “Gemma?” she asked. “Tell him...?”

“Tell him
please!
” Gemma rocked from one foot to the other with impatience.

The smile Sophia gave his daughter faded when she raised her eyes to his. She snatched her hand off his sleeve and clasped her fingers in front of her. He noticed how white her knuckles were.

Had she truly been in his bedchamber while he fought to escape his nightmare? Had she seen him like that? A cold flush of hate flooded him. He did not hate her. He hated his own shameful weakness.

“The invitation was meant for everyone,” Sophia said in an overly cheerful voice. She turned to her cousin. “It will be an opportunity for you to meet the gentry and the peers from beyond Sanctuary Bay’s parish.”

Miss Catherine opened up a folded sheet of paper that must be the invitation. “Sir Nigel is looking forward—very, very, very, very much, if I may quote Sir Nigel—to meeting three war heroes, including the new Lord Meriweather.”

“When you express it that way,” Mr. Bradby said, “I am sure I speak for my friends when I say that we would like to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction.”

“Why am I not surprised that is your answer?” Miss Catherine asked.

Sophia glanced from Bradby to her cousin and back, taking care not to look in Charles’s direction. “We should warn you that Sir Nigel will accept no answer other than an acceptance to his annual gala.”

“Are you going to attend, Miss Catherine?” Color flashed up Bradby’s face and grew even brighter when Sophia’s sister smiled at him.

“Of course, Mr. Bradby. Other than last year when Papa was ill, we have attended every harvest gala at Sir Nigel’s estate. It is great fun, and I have been looking forward to it all summer. I do hope you plan to attend, as well.”

“Most definitely. Everyone will attend, right?” He clapped Herriott on the shoulder. “We promised to see you settled on your new estate, and how better to do that than showing you off to your new neighbors?” He grinned at Charles. “Don’t you agree, Northbridge?”

“When is it?” Charles asked.